This section provides you with concise updates on how advances in brain science (neurons) biotechnology (genes) and IT (bits) are creating new tools to enhance human mental and physical performance.

Among the disciplines coalescing in the field of neurotechnology: genetic engineering, pharmaceuticals, psychology, cellular implantation, physical augmentation, electronic stimulation, and nanotechnology.

Up for discussion and analysis in Brain Waves: the political, economic, ethical, and social forces that will shape the future of one of the most important and fascinating stories of the coming decades.

About this editor

Zack Lynch is an evolutionary biologist, enterprise software marketer, and economic geographer, who has worked over the past decade to understand how technology and society coevolve. In this endeavor he has investigated self-organizing behavior of leaf cutter ants at Finca la Selva, taught classes at UCLA's Anderson School of Business on scenario planning, and analyzed sustainable agriculture at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas.

Inspired by these ventures he wrote a master's thesis on how communication technologies will impact human settlement patterns over the next 100 years. This led him to spend several years as VP of Marketing at enterprise software companies - Maxager and Steelwedge.

Yesterday I switched over to a new publishing technology that enables all of you to comment on each post. During the first 6 hours, over 1000 people visited Brain Waves while over 20 people from across the planet put in their thoughts about the future of competitive advantage.

If you are receiving this as an email, then you are among the several hundred people each day who shares a keen interest in our emerging neurosociety. I will key in your email addresses (which are always kept private) so you can continue to receive daily updates.

Mental health is the ultimate competitive weapon. Mental health underpins the development of intellectual capital and competitive advantage. It anchors the capacity of employees, managers and executives to think, use ideas, be creative and be productive. Like never before, businesses depend upon the consistent, sustainable mental performance of their employees.

As more people live longer and global competition intensifies, many people will turn to regulated neuroceuticals as the next set of tools they will adopt to help them survive and succeed. Using cogniceuticals to increase memory retention, emoticeuticals to decrease stress and sensoceuticals to add a meaningful pleasure gradient, neuroceuticals will allow people to compete without being constrained by their neurochemistry.

Athletes provide a valuable preview of how far humans will go to succeed. Examples abound of professional athletes exploiting cutting edge technology to excel beyond their competition. One new device professional athletes are currently adopting in force is The Glove. The Glove significantly improves physical endurance by accelerating the dissipation of heat from an athlete. This allows them to rapidly cool their overheated bodies to a temperature where the body’s physiology runs most efficiently. Invented just a few years ago, The Glove is now regularly used throughout the National Football League to help exhausted running backs regain their stamina between plays. Is this enablement or enhancement?

As I alluded to in Forecasting Happiness, neuroceuticals will play a prominent role in accelerating productivity across all economic sectors during the neurotechnology wave. One pervasive process that will be affected is the social process of innovation. Innovation is a key determinant of organizational success wherein cognitive assessment and emotional compassion combine to accelerate the creation of new knowledge.

Over the past several decades access to a growing global information web has improved innovation cycle times across every industry. Over the next decade this trend will continue as social networks (opinions, thoughts and concerns) become embedded across this information sea, creating a knowledge web that is vastly more reliable.

As different aspects of mental health are better understood, more parts of the innovative process will be impacted such as accelerating learning via cogniceuticals to enhancing interpersonal communication with emoticeuticals. As neuroceutical usage spreads across industries it will create a new economic “playing field” wherein individuals who use neuroceuticals will achieve a higher level of productivity than those who don’t.

The resulting competitive gap will be substantial.To put this in historical perspective, imagine the competitive advantage that a team living in the year 2003 with the Internet as their information source has over a group living in 1953 that must rely on the local library.

Richard put it perfectly, " I think Derek and I make a useful pair. I tend to gravitate towards early stage, biological, small biotech work while he brings a pre-development/development, chemical, pharmaceutical viewpoint to what he writes."